Our Choir
Meet our hard-working team of Overgate Hospice Choir chief committee officers and the talented musicians who lead our choir.
Choir Musicians
James Savage-Hanford
Music Director
James enjoys a varied career as a singer, musicologist, conductor, and teacher. He read Music at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (where he was a choral exhibitioner), and studied for a Masters and PhD in Musicology at Royal Holloway, University of London. Prior to doctoral study, he also undertook postgraduate training in vocal performance at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
As an ensemble singer, James has performed throughout the UK and across Europe with renowned groups such as the Academy of Ancient Music, the Armonico Consort, the BBC Singers, the English Concert, the Hanover Band and Sonoro, and in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Barbican Hall, St John’s Smith Square, the Aldeburgh Festival, the St Magnus Festival Kirkwall, the St Gallen Festival Switzerland, NOSPR Katowice, and the Philharmonie Essen.
As a concert soloist, James has performed much of the standard oratorio repertoire. Highlights include a performance of Mozart’s Requiem with the Brandenburg Sinfonia at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London; a programme of works by Monteverdi (including excerpts from the 1610 Vespers) and his contemporaries alongside the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble at Lancaster Priory; and Haydn’s The Creation at Southwell Minster. On the operatic stage, he made his international debut as Ferrando in Mozart’s Così fan tutte with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra at the Birgitta Festival, Tallinn.
Increasingly in demand as a musical director, James has conducted Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea (in his own piano trio arrangement) and Lennox Berkeley’s A Dinner Engagement in a double bill performance for Bute Park Opera, and has assisted on projects for the Cardiff-based Early Music ensemble Sforza, including as Chorus Master for a concert performance of Handel’s Semele.
In January 2023 he took over as Musical Director of Overgate Hospice Choir, and since September he has also been the MD of Cantores Olicanae, Ilkley. He is a former Musical Director of the Coleridge Choir (now fully amalgamated as part of Cambridgeshire Choral Society) and has worked with numerous youth and adult community choirs throughout Hertfordshire.
For more information, visit his website www.jamessavagehanford.com or follow him on Twitter @savagehanford.
Alan Horsey
Accompanist
Alan Horsey is the Accompanist to the Leeds Philharmonic Choir and the Overgate Hospice Choir in Halifax. He has enjoyed a long association with the Leeds Methodist Choir and the St Peter’s Singers of Leeds, the Sheffield Bach Society, Doncaster Choral Society and the Bradford Festival Choral Society. From 1996 until 2015 he was the Conductor of Ilkley and Otley Choral Societies.
As an orchestral organist and harpsichordist he has appeared with the Hallé, BBC Philharmonic, RLPO, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Airedale Symphony and the Manchester Camerata. He appears regularly with the Manchester Concert Orchestra specialising in celeste, synthesiser, piano and organ.
Alan is married to Elisabeth, a music teacher, and they have two children – Alice and Edward. Alan’s leisure interests include gardening and domestic poultry.
Chief Officers
Carol Armitage
Chairperson
Born in Huddersfield, Carol has lived for the last forty years in Brighouse. She is married to David and they celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary in 2020. They have two children Charles who is married to Rachael with a son Davey and they live in Atlanta USA and Joanne who lives locally is married to Rich and they have a daughter Rosa.
Having trained at The North of England Secretarial College, Leeds, Carol worked in a secretarial role at Taylor Mills Ltd and then Kosset Carpets before having her family.
She has been a volunteer in various roles at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary since joining The League of Friends of the Huddersfield Hospitals in 1983 and becoming Chairman for ten years in 1998. She volunteered on the Greenlea Oncology Unit since it opened in 1996 when she recruited a team of twenty volunteers to help on a rota basis but has retired this year.
Carol has enjoyed singing since her early schooldays and joined the school choir at Brentwood School, Southport. She had a break from singing for a long time before joining Honley Ladies Choir conducted by Catherine Williams where she also became Chairman for five years.
Interests are the theatre, cinema, travel, playing tennis (until three years ago) and yoga. Although she has no dogs now, for many years had Dalmatian dogs and bred a litter of puppies from one of them.
Carol is a soprano and has been a member of Overgate Hospice Choir since 2008. She decided to become a member having attended two of the Choir’s concerts because the idea of doing something she really enjoyed along with raising funds for the Hospice seemed a great combination. She always looks forward to rehearsals and performing a variety of concerts together and appreciates the great camaraderie within the Choir.
Helen Proctor
Choir Secretary
Helen moved to Yorkshire 35 years ago after living in Durham, Dartmoor and Manchester. She is married to Dave and they live in Brighouse with their two West Highland Terriers.
Helen’s love of music began when she was at secondary school, singing in the school choir. Aged 12, she was encouraged by her music teacher to start theory lessons and subsequently began to learn to play the clarinet and later the piano. On leaving school, Helen started a teacher training degree at Bretton Hall College in Wakefield (now the home of Yorkshire Sculpture Park) where she studied music as her subject specialism. This provided the invaluable opportunity to continue to develop her performance skills as a clarinettist; playing in orchestras, bands, ensembles and also as a soloist.
On graduating in 1991, Helen embarked upon a successful career in teaching and over the next 33 years, she taught in primary schools in Barnsley, Sowerby Bridge and Brighouse. In 2004, Helen was appointed to the position of Headteacher at Bailiffe Bridge Primary School. This was a role that she loved and where she continued to work until taking early retirement in 2023. Throughout her teaching career, Helen continued to share her love of music with the children in her care. She led choirs, bands, performances and celebrations throughout the school year and always endeavoured to keep music ‘live’ by accompanying the children’s music making on the piano wherever possible.
Now happily retired, Helen’s interests include keeping fit, holidays in term-time, having time to play her clarinet again and walking her dogs. She also works as a volunteer for the NSPCC and The Maggie Oliver Foundation where she uses her transferable professional skills to support vulnerable young people.
Helen joined the Overgate Hospice Choir in 2024 where she sings alto. She enjoys the sense of wellbeing that comes from singing with this wonderful group of people and is proud of the work that they do to support Overgate Hospice.
Sue Rosborough
Treasurer
I joined Overgate Hospice Choir in 2013 and have undertaken the role of Treasurer since 2018. I’ve been a singer all my life and am a firm believer in the power of music to improve people’s lives. Our family are all singers – we know it’s good for us physically, mentally and socially. The Overgate singers are a friendly bunch, all joined through the common aim of raising funds for the Hospice through singing.
I formed Halifax Young Singers in 1992 and continued in the role of Administrator until 2013. During this time I saw the impact of group music-making on hundreds of young people, and took the choir to Aachen on several occasions, including a magical trip in 1999 when HYS represented Halifax when Tony Blair was awarded the Charlemagne Prize.
My first concert with Overgate Hospice Choir was Elijah and this took me back 30 years to 1983 when, as a student in Leeds, I performed Elijah with Simon Lindley as conductor.
Overgate Hospice holds a special place in my heart for the care it has given to friends who have spent their last days there, and to their families. The support and care provided is immeasurable. It is a privilege to sing for Overgate and to undertake the Treasurer’s role, sending as much financial support as we can to Overgate through our concerts. Naturally I encourage my family to help and our daughters are never shy in their role with collection buckets for Overgate funds at the end of concerts.
Joyce Sharp
Membership Secretary
For the last twenty years Overgate Hospice Choir has been an important part of my life. I joined in 2000 and have only missed singing in two concerts since then. The first concert I sang in was Haydn’s Creation and this is still one of my favourites. I have also sung Carols in the Piece Hall and taken part in Light up a Life in the Hospice garden. Singing in the choir has introduced me to so much new music that I might not otherwise have encountered.
I have always been involved with music in some form or other, either singing in different choirs, playing the piano since I was a child, or learning other musical instruments. I studied music and piano with the late Harold Watkins Shaw and have sung his version of Messiah on several occasions.
For thirteen years I was Choir Treasurer and was proud to be part of our Silver Jubilee celebrations when we had raised an amazing £300,000 for the Hospice. Now, as Membership Secretary, I am happy to support the really worthwhile cause of fundraising for Overgate Hospice whilst enjoying myself singing and meeting many other like-minded friends.